When he was in New York, he lived in rooms on the second floor of an old business building not far from Fifth Avenue.

He was quite alone in the house at night, and had to walk up the stairs by the help of a little electric pocket-lantern he carried.

He let himself into his own door, turned up the light, slipped off his overcoat and gloves, and went to the writing-table to get his pipe.

That is very often the first thing a man does when he gets home at night.
The old briar pipe he preferred to any other lay on the blotting-paper in the circle where the light was brightest.

As he took it a stain on his right hand caught his eye, and he dropped the pipe to look at it.